Bette Greene: Summer of My German Soldier

Penguin (Paperback), ISBN 014130636X

When the U.S. government transports Nazi war prisoners to Jenkinsville, Arkansas, the whole town gets caught up in the war. No one wants a POW camp in Jenkinsville — except Patricia Ann Bergen, who finds more excitement in the POWs’ arrival than anything else happening that summer.

Her twelfth summer had so far consisted of catering to Sharon — Patty’s beautiful, but spoiled, six-year-old sister to whom she endures constant comparison — suffering the criticism of a cruel, depreciating mother and receiving punishments from an angry father whom she cannot please. As a result, Patty welcomes the constant distraction caused by the presence of the German soldiers. She imagines various intrigues concerning them and gathers information to impress her parents, even if it means sensationalizing the truth a bit.

In a surprising twist of fate, Patty comes face-to-face with one of the war prisoners. Contrary to what she expects, Patty finds 22- year-old Anton cheerful, intelligent, kind, funny, compassionate and handsome — not someone capable of Nazi war crimes. After the meeting, Patty can’t forget Anton and even imagines they could be friends under different circumstances.

In this summer of oppression, war and discontent, Patty becomes aware of the suffocating prejudices (against the ugly, the blacks, the poor and downtrodden, the Germans and others of religious and ethnic differences). However, able to think for herself, Patty finds the humanity and courage to look beyond stereotypes and consider people, like her black nanny and her German soldier, on their own merit. When Anton escapes the camp in search of freedom, Patty must rely on her own heart and mind to decide whether or not to help another human in need.

Summer of My German Soldier fills a unique niche in Holocaust children’s literature by portraying a Jew who helps a German and by showcasing the American home front aspect of the war. Bette Greene skillfully creates an American girl (a southern, non-practicing Jew) with believable hopes, dreams, awkwardness and curiosities.

The characters of Ruth (Patty’s nanny) and Anton provide outstanding insights into right and wrong, love and hate. By placing these characters in an intriguing, but unusual setting for a World War II story — Arkansas — Greene opens up marvelous possibilities for thoughts on and comparisons of prejudices within and without Europe, as well as within and without the war. In addition, Greene offers an unusual (and not often dramatized) slant: that not all Germans participated willingly in the Nazi party and its unforgivable persecution of Jews.

Greene’s tender tale of unlikely friendships and of a girl’s coming of age in a time where little compassion exists will tug at your heart. It pays homage to the good-hearted and gives hope that free thinkers exist and will continue to exist, so that enough people will put themselves on the line for someone else, and that as a result the world will be a better place.

Lynne Remick Pisano

Lynne Marie Pisano is a freelance writer, poet, book reviewer, SCBWI Metro New York LI Critique Group Coordinator and Co-Chair of the Long Island Children’s Writers and Illustrators. She lives in New York with her husband Michael, her son Kevin and a daughter named Kayla, and Dante, a Schipperke.